The Witches Dues
by IndigoBirds
Summary: 11-year-old Pansy Parkinson took a boon from Hermione Granger, and now it's time for her to pay up. But Hermione's got her own payment in mind. One-Shot.


The Witches Dues

AU universe. Characters are OOC, ovb. All errors are mine, and I own nothing here but the concept.

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She sets her teacup of Earl Grey on the counter carefully as she squares her expression. "So you're telling me you've failed to produce _again?" _She says with annoyance. The expression on her perfectly symmetrical face twisting sourly. Yet, oddly, this makes her no less stunning, Hermione can't help but notice.

"Well, not exactly failed to produce." You stammer out, as you wring your hands. "Failure to conceive is more accura-" She hold up one of her soft, feminine hands to interrupt your excuse as she pinches the bridge of her nose with the other hand. She shakes her head slightly as she draws in a breath.

"Failure is failure, Granger. There's no other word for it." She grinds out before she shakes herself and returns her hands and posture to her always-prim posture. Her lovely, feminine hands with their beautifully trimmed nails clasp 'just so'. Just the same as last time. As every time, you muse, trying desperately not to allow your eyes to move from her hands to her plump lips. You dig deep within yourself to control your wandering gaze, reciting internally, _'get ahold of yourself, woman.' _

You hold yourself perfectly still. If years of being in her presence have taught your anything, it is to reveal nothing, and wait her out accordingly when anything goes awry. It goes against everything in your nature to hold back like this. To smother that brave internal voice of yours screaming at you to simply leap at her, to take her in your arms so you can smell the scent of her rose perfume against her neck as you run your nose over the curve of her ear, allowing your warm breath to tickle the tiniest hairs there.

This time you have to pinch yourself to pull your mind from your own fantasies. It's discreet, but it hurts like bollocks on fire. Discrete was never your forte, but you've learned enough over the years to get away with a fair bit. You keep your expression benign, yet the way your eyes seem to plead at her causes her to roll her beautiful blue eyes at you.

"As much as these bi-annual check-ins thrill me, Granger, we find ourselves at a point where -yet again- I have come for the first born you promised me, and yet again you have nothing gestating beneath those robes of yours." The flick of her hand gestured to Hermione's slightly-oversized robes, speak nothing to your figure whatsoever. Not at all like Pansy's do with their finely tailored edging, and their double-stitched seams. Crisp and stylist, just like she's always been. Hermione always envied Pansy's togetherness; she was the absolute epitome of pureblood heiress, and it showed.

But Hermione was smart. Deadly smart. No other witch or wizard could come close to matching her intelligence, and they both knew it. It was one of the reasons Pansy's family had leapt at the chance to sponsor Hermione to attend wizarding school. Her sheer brilliance as a muggle-born witch had shocked and awed the entire wizarding community when she had first made her debut within the secreted community.

Pansy had always been envious of Hermione's raw talents, but she'd never have admitted to it. After so many years in the company of a woman so blindingly talented, it was assuredly why she has requested such a cruel and unusual boon from the fellow girl.

A pureblood family always sponsored the muggleborn witches and wizards before they joined wizarding society for a requisite year prior to attending their actual wizarding schools. It was a chance for the muggleborns to understand the greater social mores of the aristocratic society they were soon to be living among. A chance, as it were, to ensure that the Old Ways never died out, or were forgotten. Among that benefit, the purebloods discovered that in turn, they too learned a great deal from their muggle-born wards during those short years. Things such as new societal changes within the greater muggle world, as well as technological advances that lived outside of the confines of their own society.

The practice that harkened back as far as the years after Grindlewald had fallen. Taking His hateful rhetoric and bigoted pedagogy with him to the grave. The leaders of the wizarding communities had instituted the Muggleborn Inclusiveness Initiative. And to much great success following.

But when 11-year-old Pansy had first met the utter prodigy that was a wandless, bushy haired and buck-toothed little Hermione Granger as she delighted and awed all those who met her with her amazing feats of magic, she had cracked. With one unplanned interjection at the ceremony of binding, she'd bound Hermione to agree to give Pansy the most precious thing her 11-year-old mind could imagine at the time as payment: her first born child.

Truly, looking back on it now, she scoffed at the cliché. Asking for a first born as payment? It wasn't the dark ages anymore! But nonetheless, Hermione has agreed to it on the spot, looking Pansy dead in her blue eyes with a determination that had made her cringe instantly as she realized what had really happened.

For the first few years it seemed nothing at all to must about how one day, Pansy Parkinson would be raising and cooing over the first born of the bright and brilliant Hermione Granger. But every six months following graduation from Hogwarts Pansy visited Hermione, only to find that Hermione had not conceived any such baby. At first the check-ins were perfunctory. Casual visits, sometimes with tea and a brief chat about Hermione's current projects or discussions about how current legislation was looking into mimicking the muggle internet to see it such a tool was suitable for use in the wizarding realm.

But something in the last couple of years had changed in Pansy. The closer time would draw to that six-month mark, she would grow anxious, and found herself fraught with anticipation. Her nights would fill themselves with dreams of warm, wiggling bundles of cooing babes in her arms, only to wake finding her belly empty, and her eyes leaking tears from them. Her premonition of her future child had begun to haunt her as it slowly dawned on her just how much she had begun to yearn for this child.

And yet she uttered a word to no one. Not a single soul. Her parents already had opinions of how Pansy had _deigned _to lower herself to working for a living, rather than living the life of a rich socialite. A life where she was nothing more than the vessel of her husband's children, and a mere figurehead relegated to planning parties and picking out drapes.

So here, more than ten years later, Pansy stands before Hermione in a kitchen that is, admittedly, quite lovely with its blue cabinets and brushed nickel fixtures. But again, Pansy will admit nothing of her admiration for the 6-burner chef-grade gas stove, and set of Shun classic knives hanging magnetized to the wall above the oiled sugar maple butcher block. The grain was so subtle, one wouldn't think it was so lovely unless you really looked.

Pansy caught herself and righted her stare accordingly. It was time for her to leave, and not daydream about _Hermione Granger's sodding perfect chefs' kitchen. _She chided herself internally.

"Right, then." She says stiffly, smoothing out imaginary wrinkles in her robes as she stands as tall as possible. Though truthfully only about an inch or so above Hermione. If you don't count the hair, that is. She extends a perfectly manicured index finger to Hermione and narrows her blue eyes. Hermione sighed at how lovely the dark lashes framed them. "Six months, Granger." Hermione nods dutifully, and in her mind, she imagines taking that hand in her own and pulling Pansy close to her. To hear the soft gasp of her surprise as she traces her jaw before she kisses her.

But just like that, she's out the front door, and Hermione is standing there as her head begins to hang in shame of her own cowardice.

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A seldom ill comment had been said of Pansy Parkinson but being consummately tardy had never been uttered once. It is exactly six months to the day that she stands on the doorstep to Hermione's ivy-covered cottage. Her knock is always a perfunctory four raps on a door, but she only gets to three before it swings wide and she's standing before the shorter, bushy-haired Hermione. Though unlike in their youth, Hermione is no longer bucked-toothed (somewhere around their fourth year, Pansy had noted the absolute straightness and whitened uniformity of her smile and scowled her jealousy at how utterly _perfect _she looked) but her hair remains an absolute entity of its own. _Nearly sentient in its mass_, Pansy had always thought.

As always, Hermione stepped to the side with a bright smile that lit up her peaches-and cream coloration with a brightness Pansy had grown to find herself prone to want to gaze at. But as usual, she mentions nothing. Today's meeting must remain on-task, she reminds herself sternly.

"Can I get you anything, Pansy?" Hermione offers brightly, jumping right into her always-sunny expression as she follows her into the kitchen. The kettle is already steaming with boiling water, and Pansy can practically taste the lavender Earl Grey she's usually served. It's a special blend she's only had at Hermione's house. Pansy should know because she's tried to recreate it herself for _years _and failed every time. Pansy absolutely adores that damned tea.

Against every urging in her body to accept, she shakes her head in decline, and the brightness of Hermione's expression falters slightly: Pansy has never refused her tea.

"Today we're getting right down to business, Granger." She removes her soft moleskin gloves from her hands and removed her over-cloak carefully. Her robes are that dusky indigo that lights up her eyes like they are on fire, and Hermione has trouble looking at her without a swoon threatening to sway her from her feet. She tries her best to look neutral at the statement, knowing full-well that she is, yet again, not pregnant.

"It's time to put this boon to rest, once and for all." Her directness is a bit out of the ordinary for Hermione. With Pansy, it's usually subtlety all-over. Hermione inclines her head in curiosity.

"And how will we do that?" She asks, turning to find Pansy standing so close to her that the smell of roses fills her nose and mouth and it's all she can do to keep from cupping Pansy's soft cheeks in her palms.

"Simple." Pansy says, plucking at an imaginary hair on Hermione's shoulder. Hermione can barely stand still. "We're going to set you up on a series of dates until we get you good and pregnant. Then the bargain is satisfied, and you and I can go on about our lives again. No more of these overbearing visits from me demanding a baby."

Hermione can't quite tell, but she's almost sure that the sound in her ears is the Earth tumbling from beneath her feet. She's been avoiding this. Direly avoiding this. Hermione wrings her hands.

"Well Pansy, you see I've tried a few times to go out on dates, or to-" She gulps back the word. "Seduce a man, but I've had the hardest time actually getting a man to go out with me." Pansy raises one of her perfect dark eyebrows up into her dark curtain-style bangs.

"What do you mean you've tried?" She presses, leaning against the counter and crossing her arms over her chest. Hermione knows this body language; Pansy's not happy. Years of studying her body language has taught her as much.

"I mean what I said. I've asked out dozens of men, and it's always some excuse!" Hermione turns away as she feels her cheeks heat up. "It's always 'Oh, not tonight Granger, I've got quiddich.' or 'Oh, that's a great laugh, Granger! You're so funny!' or my personal favorite affront of 'Jesus, Granger, didn't you know I was married?' I mean, how am I supposed to know a bloke is married if he doesn't wear a wedding ring?" Hermione's tone had risen higher and higher in a hysteria she didn't realize she'd had in her. At first, she'd genuinely tried to get dates with men, agreeing that satisfying the boon sooner was certainly better. But despite her efforts - the efforts of the unbelievably brilliant and accomplished Hermione Granger - she was failing miserably to find a man to get her pregnant.

Her rant ceased with her ragged breaths as she blinked back the tears of humiliation that had welled up in her eyes and felt a hand on her shoulder. She squeezed them shut, willing desperately that her magic could pull them back into her body and cease to allow them to be, rather than to cry in front of perfect, elegant, Pansy Parkinson.

"Alright Granger, alright." Pansy said. Her voice was soothing and gentle now, and her hand rubbed Hermione's back comfortingly. "This cannot be that hard, Granger." She said comfortingly, like you would to a child. It was unbelievably motherly, this gesture. "Come on now, with your brilliant mind, and my strategic planning, surely we can get this done?"

Hermione barked out a laugh and looked back at Pansy. She offered Hermione a smile that made her heart want to melt.

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Hermione slammed the door behind her, her hair flowing around her as she huffed through the foyer, shucking off the low-heels Pansy had dressed her in and threw her cloak towards the closet in frustration.

From inside her kitchen, Pansy perked up at the sound of the door and came padding around the corner -nearly into Hermione herself. "Well?" She asked brightly as Hermione had started pulling the pins from her updo, angrily. Hermione spun around to face her, her pert little nose scrunched up in a rage Pansy had only seen glimpses of in their schooling years.

"I got stood up!" She screamed, flinging her arms from her hair, the tamed curls flying away wildly. Pansy can't get a word in as Hermione stomps up the stairs to her bedroom, huffing the whole way up.

Amid the cloths, pins, and shoes, Pansy finds herself stunned silent in the melee of the forgotten items.

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"Seriously Granger, you need to hold still." Pansy chides as Hermione flinches.

"Well, I can't when you're stabbing me in the eye!" Pansy rolls her own eyes at Hermione's cheeky tone.

"Ok, first off, you need to stop blinking, and I'll quit stabbing you in the eye!" Pansy grabs her chin to hold her steady and Hermione glares at Pansy with her amber-brown eyes as Pansy wipes away a smudge at the outer corner with a q-tip. "And quit being so dramatic," She adds. "You sound like a teenaged girl, and you need to get ahold of yourself."

Hermione scowls at her again and tries to keep her eyes open as the black tip of the eyeliner threatens to poke her cornea. Pansy tsks at her. "Oh, calm down and look upward." She says with a light laugh.

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It's been months since Pansy stormed into Hermione's kitchen and proclaimed her intent to coach Hermione into seducing a man into her bed, so Hermione could conceive, and it's begun to drive Pansy completely spare. Every Friday and Saturday, Pansy lets herself into Hermione's house with a pile of outfits and a series of restaurants and clubs in muggle London as well as Wizarding London that they can strategize themselves at, depending on the mood.

Pansy has begun to think Hermione is _cursed._ Every night they go out, it's as if Hermione isn't even _there _for these men. Sure, they actually see her, but not a single one of their sorry arses have taken any interest in taking her home with them for a roll in the sheets.

And Pansy can't, for the life of her, think of why that could be. It's as if they're positively _repelled _by her, for some reason. Honestly for the first few weeks, Pansy thought Hermione had been making it up. But night by night, week by week, she saw it for herself. Hermione would chat with a bloke at any chance she got, and inevitably they would congenially excuse themselves from her presence after a few minutes.

Pansy Parkinson was not accustomed to failure. She might not have as much raw talent for the manipulation of magic as Hermione Granger, but she was no slouch. She got great marks in her classes, and she was a clever witch in her own rite. _She was going to make this work._

From the en suite off Hermione's bedroom, the shower had just turned off. Pansy swept through the kitchen and started the kettle. She'd familiarized herself with the farmhouse-style kitchen quite well by this point and plucked out enough tea and cups for her and Hermione to share.

Unlike the months and months previous, Pansy had no such shrunken packages filled with outfits today, however. She strode up Hermione staircase toward her bedroom with a purpose, now.

Hermione's clear voice rang out from the shower. "I'll be done in just a minute, Pans!" She calls you this diminutive that has endeared her all the more, despite Pansy's attempts to remain detached from the growing affection it causes her to feel.

"No rush, Granger." She calls back, settling into the settee in her bedroom casually, opening up the file she's brought with her with some stacks of paper and articles within to review them once more. Since Hermione added her to the wards of the house some weeks back -a fact Pansy only discovered herself by accident, she had realized something very serious about this whole process: They had been going about it wrong the whole time.

Pansy knew her strengths were in subtlety and cunning, but it was high time to be bold and daring. It was time for her to be honest. Hermione's lingering stares and wide smiles weren't enough anymore, and she was going to have to take the chance to change all of it. She smiled as she heard Hermione from within the bathroom, rummaging around the drawers.

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You sit together on the bed with the papers strewn out across the coverlet. You're still in your bath towel, and your hair is still dripping across your shoulders, but you don't care at all. Pansy's smile is knowing, and you feel uneasy.

"The information is all there." She says simply, and you glance over it all again. The costs, the procedures, the preparation prior, and about three dozen profiles of various men. Wizards, even. Something cold has formed in your stomach because you realize, _this is it. The jig is up. _Once this baby is in play, the countdown has begun, and once that's over… Your throat threatens to close up and you breathe deeply through the panic you've begun to experience. It means no more Pansy. Your hand is clenching around the twisted top of your towel.

"I can see that, Pans." You say quietly, once again taking in the collective dossier Pansy has put together on the muggle procedure referred to as 'Artificial Insemination'. You silently damn the Muggleborn Inclusion Initiative for providing the wider wizarding community access to Muggle medical information. Pansy has outdone herself this time, and you always knew she would at some point.

Pansy was never a fool, and it was one of the reasons you'd come to love her so much. It was the reason you'd developed and implemented a sodding _male-specific _repulsion potion designed to send men pleasantly on their way, so they would have no interest in your person, no matter what means you contrived, and short of casting an _imperio _on them to force them to comply. No men meant _no baby, _which meant Pansy would keep coming around, and wouldn't disappear into the world with the only thing that bound her to you.

Your heart feels like it's going to stop, but it's the end of the line. Her smug smile at her achievement adorns her beautiful, perfect face with her dark bangs, and wavy dark hair. Hair you will never feel in your fingertips and lips you will never taste with your own. You are defeated, and you feel like everything is falling apart.

"So, you really want me to do this?" You whisper finally, barely able to look at her face anymore. Your vision unfocuses at the documents strewn out around you before you close your eyes. If you cry now, everything you've worked to keep her from knowing will be for nothing. She'll piece it all together and leave you. You'll never see her again.

"No, Hermione." She says quietly and takes a deep breath. Her voice is so gentle, and warm that you almost want to believe it's because she's in love with you. As you are with her and have been for more years than you care to count anymore. "I want _us_ to do this."

You feel her soft hand on your cheek before you can open your eyes, and the softness of lips at the corner of your mouth, as she gentle lays you back. You don't dare open your eyes, but tears burst from them now as she kisses you. So gently, and softly, that you think you might die. But instead you kiss her back and pour all of the years of longing and torment at having loved her into them.

She pauses, and you slowly open your eyes to see the curtain of her dark waves surrounding your faces, and a smile so happy on her face that you pray this moment is as real as you want it to be. You wrap your arms around her and kiss her again as you hug her to you.

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The wedding was a summer affair, much to Hermione's discomfort, as the first few months of pregnancy proved unexpectedly unpredictable. She thought the first trimester would rend her utterly exhausted, when in fact it left her utterly sleepless and completely energized for no discernable reason. And when she did finally sleep her dreams were so vivid and real, it was as if she hadn't slept at all. But merely wandered from her waking fantasy into her usual reality. And the sweating was something entirely unexpected, despite the cooling charms. "_Glowing, my fat arse!" _Hermione had growled.

Pansy was unbelievably supportive, throughout it all. She brought home mixtures from the apothecary designed for each week's progress of the fetus as it grew, each with an individualized mixture of herbs and vitamins to keep the baby supported, and her beautifully sweaty wife in the best of health.

When Hermione laughed at how precise and succinct each of the mixtures seemed to be, Pansy sniffed her offense and haughtily replied, "Well, you're not the only one adept at creating positions and mixtures, are you?" That shut Hermione right up.

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One night, during the full mood on an autumn evening, Hermione threaded her hands through those of her wife on the porch swing of the cabin they had bought together just after the wedding and kicked her bare feet gently atop the wooden porch floor to keep the momentum moving. Her head was nestled on Pansy's shoulder, and Pansy lazily played with the end of Hermione's voluminous curls.

"You know," she whispered. "When baby arrives, they'll be well and truly _yours." _Pansy kisses the top of her head, and she chuckles at the irony. She tilts Hermione's head up to hers, and caresses Hermione's much-larger belly, moving down over the lowest curve above the pelvic area, and Hermione can't help but gasp.

When Pansy kisses Hermione, it's only because of her size that she can't crawl into Pansy's lap anymore. Amid the building passion they share, Pansy's heart threatens to overflow with how much love she feels for her wife, and how excited she is for _their _baby to be born.

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The cry in the night is all too-familiar, and Pansy rolls over to her wife's sleeping body. Hermione is already stirring and groans a little when Pansy's arms makes contact.

"Nggggghhhh. Is it your turn?" Pansy mumbles into the pillow.

From under her large, and now-frizzy curls, Hermione mumbles. "You're the one who bought it. You deal with it."

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_**fin~**_


End file.
